Sweets for my sweet

I ask you this: is there anything better than brown sugar and butter? Mmmm...
Or baking chocolate cake on a cool, rainy day... I day I might add might be more at home in winter rather than this second day of Summer!

My day = baking yummy slice and chocolate cake for husbands birthday then cooking curry for husbands birthday dinner. I've got my priorities right don't I, cake first, then dinner :O)

We hope your day is sweet and wonderful too.

There's a lot of things not to love about a newborn: the sleepless nights, the pooey nappies, the way you seem to always be either sitting on the couch feeding or standing at the change table cleaning up the latest eruption!

Thankfully newborns also give us little blessings to keep us from sinking too low in those first difficult months. Here's a few things that renew my spirit:

I love her perfect blue eyes and the sparkle in them when she smiles.

I love her soft dark hair and the smell of the top of her head.

I love her tiny fingers and the way she holds on to my finger so tightly.

I love her perfect innocence as she sleeps.

Unfinished Project Sympathy

Unfinished Project Sympathy

A good friend of mine blogged recently about the frustration of starting a project but never getting around to finishing things off and the excuses we make and how we make ourselves for bad for not being able to commit to things to see them through to completion. Completion, ah there is a whole other rant just waiting to spill, what would we do if we ever felt that our lives were complete...I digress...

Anyway, it got me to thinking that I'm in the same boat and sinking fast! My good old pregnancy hormones are raging well at the moment and I seem to be having a fantastic run of cleaning, tidying, cooking, organising, re-organising, moving things, de-cluttering, throwing things out, moving things back to where they were to begin with - you get the idea! However, when it comes to my little crafty projects, big projects in the garden, or little things that actually take a bit more time and effort or don't really HAVE to be done right now I tend to procrastinate and delay and half-start but never finish these things!

Now I'm not out to blame society for my lack of time, motivation and skill in this area but I do believe the way we, or at least I, am living definitely has something to do with it (do bear with me, its 0530 in the morning and I know I'm rambling ). We are constantly barraged from our chosen source/sources of media with things that we could/should/just have to do, make or buy to make our lives the happy and fulfilled affair that we all want them to be. It is SO easy to be distracted by all these 'shiny' things and put aside an older project to start a new one that looks more exciting or easier or prettier than the one we are currently working on! So we set ourselves up for a cupboard (or garage) full of unfinished projects just waiting for a little bit of time and love. Thus we also set ourselves up to look in that cupboard and feel like a hopeless failure because we just NEVER finish anything!

My other excuse is the two year old in my life. I am amazed at mothers who manage to get projects done with one or more children in the house with them all day, every day! Little ones are so distracting. For me, it's easier to take that 10 minutes that I get every now and then and sit down with my cuppa in front of the computer/internet and trawl around a little while than to sit down and try to concentrate on sewing or scrapping project! Especially in the sewing department I find that it takes me that 10 minutes just to set up the machine in the stitch that I need, because I am such an unskilled total novice in that department!! So I find myself thinking is it really worth all the effort, I'll just leave it till later when I have more time - which at the moment is, well, not to say never, but indeed very rare!

So in an effort to motivate myself a little more, here is a bit of a list of my current unfinished projects for you and me to look back on in 12 months time and see if I can tick any off as COMPLETE! Oh, and I really have to STOP trawling the internet and spying more little projects that I just have to start making and leave lying around the house unfinished!







I do have one 'yay' - I completed my scrapbook for Alex, age 0-6 months, unfortunately i'm still 18 months behind and will have another one to start in couple of months for Baby number 2. Ah well...baby steps hey!

Nesting syndrome!

Decluttering is so much easier when you are pregnant and filled with lovely, slightly crazy, nesting hormones. It also helps when you live in a smallish house and have run out of places to store STUFF! I've been delighted with my ruthlessness lately and shocked at what I decided to keep last time I nested and boxed stuff away under our house - why an earth do I have a box of photocopied notes from university textbooks??? Out they go! Why an earth did we keep a broken video player and a cassette player when we don't own any cassettes??? Out they go! I've also had to cull a lot of our books which has been a little hard because I just love books. I've come to the realisation that i'm never going to have time to read them all again and time would be much better spent reading new and different stories!

We also had Alex's new big boy bed delivered and it is all shiny and set up in his room now. The cot has been temporarily dismantled whilst we clear out, paint and lay new carpet in the new babies room. I'm really looking forward to this part - that's next month. After next pay day I'm ordering some fabrics to decorate the room - a cot quilt, some cushions and some wall art are all on the cards!!






Some pretty artwork Alex created with some old craft stuff I found hiding in the cupboard I was cleaning out!

Getting ready for spring

BABY DOS - 17 weeks



MUMMY's BUMP - 18 weeks

Big news from my little corner of the world is that our second child is due in September. I'm so excited to be having a spring baby. Every year we bunker down for the winter chill and prepare for and eagerly await the spring months. We plant out spring bulbs, prepare the vegie beds for spring vegies and prune the trees and shrubs in anticipation of spring rain and warm sunshine that will bring forth fantastic new growth in the garden. This year we are also preparing inside the house for the arrival of our new little bundle of joy. I love being pregnant, well once you get past those first few months of feeling tired and sick every minute of the day. It's a great time to declutter and clean and put all those crazy nesting hormones to good use! Now if only I can channel them into some crafty, creative moments I'll be overjoyed!

1. WALKING. I've actually been on a few walks lately - not so much the "get fit and lose weight" ones I originally planned for this year but more the lovely pregnant woman strolls with a 2 year old, just to keep the body moving. Yoga classes start next weekend I'm so excited and ready to start "striking a pose"!

2. CRAFT. Ahem...well yes...I have lots of ideas...but today I actually cleared off the dining room table and designated a little corner of it to my sewing machine, which has been dusted off and pulled out of the cupboard :D

3. Another page completed in the scrapbook today :)

4. The library is still hiding from us...but I did resist buying a book the other day thinking I WILL go to the library and borrow it instead!

5. Decluttering has been going fantastically - 3 bags of clothes gone to goodwill, 2 boxes of other kitchen things and books to goodwill as well, one old CD player, one old video player, one old receiver and one old tape deck(why we kept this is beyond me) ALL GONE, 2 more boxes of books ready to be taken to and hopefully sold to the secondhand book dealer, and one shed full of cardboard boxes cleared out and gone to the dump!! And that was all within the last week!! PHEW!

6. The garden is slowing down - we've got spinach and spring onions doing well in the garden and we put in both dwarf peas and snow peas on the weekend so hopefully these will grow and produce for us too. Daffodil shoots are sprouting up through the soil already and we've been madly fertilising them in the hope of a good display in a couple of months. I really want to get out a prune but for most things its best to wait a couple more months. A few things have suffered the wrath of my pruning shears though - I just couldn't resist and I know in a few months I may not feel like clambering through the garden with a big belly full of baby!!

A few boxes didn't make it to the dump yet...we couldn't resist building Alex a house with some of them...

Routines...

It seems this year has turned out differently than I first thought - I just can't seem to settle into a routine! Alex and I have 2 mornings a week of planned activities - Montessori one morning and swimming lessons on another - I even had trouble making it to both these every week! We've been toilet-training which takes more time than you would think - I'm happy to say though that my not-even 2 year old seems to be almost there at the moment though, I'm so proud of him.

I'm hoping that, after Alex's birthday, Easter and a trip away, things will settle down for a few months and we'll be able to get ourselves sorted and I will be able to put into action all my plans for this year. The resolutions are going...okay, not great...but who sticks to these things really and besides I have all year to achieve them right???

1. Walking - what's that, walking? Does walking around the grocery store count - my poor puppy seems to be getting less walks than he did last year at the moment - its either been too hot, too wet, too windy or I've just been too darned tired!! I have however made enquiries into starting doing a Pilate's class once week from the beginning of April. Its something I've always wanted to try so this is year I'm going to give it a go! ...And I will go for a walk this week....

2. Craft - another whoopsy - my sewing machine is hiding in the cupboard and refuses to come out until I do something useful with it. Like so many people, I wish I had an area where I could leave it set up all the time...just the thought of having to drag it out to the kitchen table and set everything up and then put it all away again when I'm finished for the day is sooooo daunting...and a great excuse!! Lets hope the extension we are planning sometime this year happens and I'll have a little "me" space! Too be quite honest though, at the moment, the thought of a few hours sleep is more appeal ling than dragging out the craft stuff.

3. I have had some success on the scrapbook - I have almost finished Alex's 0-6 months scrapbook! YAY!!!

4. Haven't been to the library yet and yes we have bought more books...:(

5. I've been very good on the shopping front though (apart from books) and generally throw away junk mail before I read it - I still must get one of those signs for the letterbox though - its such a waste of paper!

6. The garden is looking fantastic at the moment - Autumn is such a lovely time, everything is beautiful and green and lush (thanks to some good rain lately too) and the harvest is on in the vegie garden! We've had good crops of corn, tomatoes, capsicum's and potatoes this year. I made some delicious tomato sauce out of my vegetables and herbs and managed to save some in little sandwich bags in the freezer for a quick pasta meal! I really was very impressed with it - I just wished I'd written down the recipe as I went along - I can't remember exactly what I put in nor how much! Shame! Its also a shame that much of the lush growth of today will be destroyed by frost in a couple of months and we will be weathering the dark bare bones of winter again! Alex and I planted daffodil bulbs on the weekend though so we have something to look forward to in spring!

THE SAUCE



SOME OF THE PRODUCE



ENJOYING HOME-GROWN CORN :)

Oops

One word...slack, slack, slack...but I have an excuse...I swear :D

Week One = success

A quick one tonight as I am sooooo sleepy! Its been a busy week here and VERY hot - 38 degrees 4 days in row. The garden is suffering and so am I.

The NYR's (New Years Resolutions) are coming along well.

1. Been for my 3 walks each week.

2. Organised my sewing stuff and decided which project I want to complete first - an update on this one next week.

3. Completed 2 more pages in Alex's scrapbook - these ones were photos of his first trip to the beach! It seems so long ago, he was a tiny little baby then - it was in July 2008 so Alex was only 3 months old :)

4. Haven't made it to the library yet - plan to do this tomorrow morning. Have also bought more books as Borders had a big sale on and I couldn't resist - so I guess I fail on this one so far!

5. Have been very restrained with the shopping, apart from the books, having to pay 2 big utility bills this month hasn't helped with the savings though :( Also cleared out another 3 baggs of stuff to give to charity and dropped them off yesteday - I got rid of my old Dr Martin boots - it was hard, but I haven't worn them in about 5 years and they were 15 years old!!!

6. Have been out in the garden every day watering and pruning and weeding. The corn is doing superbly and we are harvesting tomatoes, onions and zuchinis daily. We should also have plenty of pototoes hiding underground as the plants have flowered really well this season. Hopefully they have had enough water.

7. Here is my blog :D

'Matoes!!














Alex and the corn!

Helloooo 2010

Well its that time of the year again when we all tend to assess our lives and goals and plans for the coming year. My family and I went out for a walk around the lake on New Years Day morning - there were LOTS of other people walking, jogging and cycling their way around that lake and I'm guessing that many of their NY's resolutions involved fitness! I too have a few goals for the year ahead that will hopefully become habitual if I force them for the next few months. So here is my list so its out there and I have record of it!

1. Go for a walk 3 times a week (this one is not just for me either, I have an aging, chubby husky that needs to lose some weight and the only way he exerts energy is by being dragged out walking!)

2. Get back into sewing and finish the projects I've started (I have a load of material and patterns etc for things I want to make and a couple of projects already started - these I WILL finish!)

3. Get Alex's scrapbook up-to-date. I'm only up to about 6 months old at the moment and he will be 2 at the end of March! I have lots of photos printed out and lots of papers and embellishments. Just have to find the time to sit down and create!

4. The obvious boring one - spend less, save more, declutter and stop buying more things to clutter up the house! I'm going to get a "no junk mail" sticker for my letter box so I won't be tempted to look through catalogues and see things that I don't really need but that some marketing guru thinks I have to buy to keep the economy going! Rant, rant, rant!

5. Join my local library and borrow books rather than buying them all the time! I also think Alex is at an age where he would enjoy the story time which they run at the library so I want to incorporate this into our weekly activities.

6. I don't think this needs too much encouragement but I do want to spend lots of time out in the garden and in particular, more time on my veggie garden to try and make it more productive and to teach Alex more about plants and veggies and herbs and insects and soil and all that fantastic stuff.

7. Blog more! Not every day - I just can't do that - I'm aiming for once a week! To keep myself, and you, up to date on whether I am achieving or not!! :)

HAPPY 2010!!